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The last 10 posts

Tuesday, March 18th 2008, 10:49am

by Taxman711 (Guest)

(messed up earlier post)

Got it fixed this weekend, replaced the entire 765 using the whole
assembly I bought last year. Turns out, when I winterized, I
closed the ball valve going into the PVB completely. Although I
opened the test cocks, water still existed below that point and
froze. Next year, I will either have to blow out the water coming
into the PVB or install drip drains to release the inflow water when I
shut the water off.

Update:
Well, this year the poppett/bonnett look fine, but the
the bottom of the backflow has a 2-3 inch split just above where it
connects to the PVC coming up out of the ground and is spewing
water. I have no idea what caused pressure enough to do that over
the winter as I winterized long before it got cold. Maybe I
should just pay a pro to winterize for now on?

Got it fixed this weekend, replaced the entire 765 using the whole
assembly I bought last year. Turns out, when I winterized, I
closed the ball valve going into the PVB completely. Although I
opened the test cocks, water still existed below that point and
froze. Next year, I will either have to blow out the water coming
into the PVB or install drip drains to release the inflow water when I
shut the water off.

At least I am learning a thing or two about plumbing, etc.

I guess it was a good thing I bought an entire Febco 765-1 last year,
maybe I can use it and salvage the poppett/bonnett I used for
replacement parts last year.

Given
that the backflow is made of brass, I don't see how water pressure
could account for the split. Only water still in that part of the pipes
freezing over the winter is the only thing I can think of to account
for that sort of damage.

If I understand you correctly, this is
the pipe leading TO the backflow. If so, what (if anything) did you do
to remove water from the pipes BEFORE the backflow. This sort of seems
to be a tricky area as plumbing codes say you can't place a connection
point before the backflow that you could use to blow out that section
of the pipe. In some places, I've seen suggestions of annual removal of
the backflow. In my case, I have a filter installed upstream of the
backflow. I open the filter and get the water before the backflow out
there. To insure I get all of it back down to below ground level, I
have to siphon out some of the water through the filter
openning.

Update: Well, this year the poppett/bonnett look fine, but the
the bottom of the backflow has a 2-3 inch split just above where it
connects to the PVC coming up out of the ground and is spewing
water. I have no idea what caused pressure enough to do that over
the winter as I winterized long before it got cold. Maybe I
should just pay a pro to winterize for now on?

I guess it was a good thing I bought an entire Febco 765-1 last year,
maybe I can use it and salvage the poppett/bonnett I used for
replacement parts last year.

Given that the backflow is made of brass, I don't see how water pressure could account for the split. Only water still in that part of the pipes freezing over the winter is the only thing I can think of to account for that sort of damage.

If I understand you correctly, this is the pipe leading TO the backflow. If so, what (if anything) did you do to remove water from the pipes BEFORE the backflow. This sort of seems to be a tricky area as plumbing codes say you can't place a connection point before the backflow that you could use to blow out that section of the pipe. In some places, I've seen suggestions of annual removal of the backflow. In my case, I have a filter installed upstream of the backflow. I open the filter and get the water before the backflow out there. To insure I get all of it back down to below ground level, I have to siphon out some of the water through the filter openning.

Update: Well, this year the poppett/bonnett look fine, but the
the bottom of the backflow has a 2-3 inch split just above where it
connects to the PVC coming up out of the ground and is spewing
water. I have no idea what caused pressure enough to do that over
the winter as I winterized long before it got cold. Maybe I
should just pay a pro to winterize for now on?

I guess it was a good thing I bought an entire Febco 765-1 last year,
maybe I can use it and salvage the poppett/bonnett I used for
replacement parts last year.

Now, make it one of those jobs where I have to replace a brass AVB with a PVB, and make up for the mismatch in dimensions, and it might go another hour. Ka-ching! I think if I were in the foothills, with all of the freezeups, I'd go back to using union fittings on PVB installs.